Obama's Totally Cool Body Man

Reggie Love is Senator Barack Obama's amusingly named "body man." He's a 26-year-old former college football and basketball player. Also he's really cool! The Times has a total crush on him, and they tell us all about how Mr. Love is totally good at sports and got Obama into hip-hop and fist-bumps reporters. (Or, as they put it, he "offers closed-fist high-fives to members of the news media.") He's with Barry all the time, and has pens and Sharpies and nicotine gum and stuff. He also makes sure no one ever tries to give the senator mayo or a second beer. And they play basketball! Soooo cool! No, seriously, he's really really cool.

Young, eager campaign aides are stock characters in movies and on television, but few have quite the élan of Mr. Love, who, at 6-foot-5, is about three inches taller than the tall candidate, fitter than the fit candidate (he can bench press more than 350 pounds) and cooler than the cool candidate.

"There's no doubt that Reggie is cooler than I am," Mr. Obama said, laughing, in a phone interview. "I am living vicariously through Reggie."

The Times basically runs this story (the candidate's shadow who makes sure he never has to make his own sandwiches ever again) every election season. As we read we tried to remember the name of John Kerry's guy but then they conveniently linked to the 2004 story. The New York Times is adapting to the digital age and making our "this story looks like that story" posts so much easier!

John Kerry's "body man" was Marvin Nicholson Jr, which is not as cool of a name as Reggie Love. But Nicholson was "a former bartender and golf caddie," which is almost as cool as former college football player. He spent most of his time making John Kerry peanut butter sandwiches and never introduced Kerry to Jay-Z, which is why John Kerry was such a lousy candidate.